Choosing My Confessions
by TheUncannySapiens
Summary: Two years after his funeral, House encounters the one vestige of his past he hasn't left behind without remorse. Actually, it personifies in the appearance of Remus Hadley, who asks House to keep an old promise and aches to ease his conscience at the same time. - Post 8x22, includes an original character, mentions euthanasia.


A/N: This is my first House fanfiction. I really wanted to write something featuring Thirteen's father (even though that seems to be a recurring motive in some fanfictions, I don't think he was abusive but esentially a nice guy who suffered a great loss), but I wasn't sure how to do, or what to write, so that's what I came up with.

The rating is T because I'd rather be too careful than too daring with it. Euthanasia is mentioned, and this can be a touchy subject. Personally, I don't see why 9+ could be setting the line too low (age-wise), but others might disagree, so I'm just being safe (and admittedly a real coward).

Spoilers: The story is set about two years after Season 8, Episode 22, "Everybody Dies". So if you haven't finished the show yet, this story is going to contain spoilers. If you have somehow managed to be a House-Fan who hasn't watched the finale yet _and_ stayed away from spoilers - kudos to you! I watched the last episodes, like, a month late, and knew all about what I was going to see.

Disclaimer: I see how this might come as a surprise, but I do not own _House MD_. Technically, I named her father and her brother, and I also made the specifics of their story up, but they were mentioned on the show before, so... yeah. It all belongs to _FOX_, I guess. I also made the library up. There might be one, but who knows?

The title, "Choosing My Confessions", is a line from the song "Losing MY Religion" by R.E.M.

Stewart Alsop was a newspaper columnist who lived from 1914 to 1974.

Because I'm paranoid, my sources are listed on the bottom of this story.

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It would be cool if you dropped a review after reading this!

**Choosing My Confessions**

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_A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep,_

_and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist._

Stewart Alsop

* * *

He had always loved the smell of old paper and ink. It had soothed him in the worst and been the icing on the cake in the best of times. Being a history professor, retired but not less passionate about it, that was probably a prerequisite for the job. The thought that millions of people worked to preserve history, to memorize, interpret and use it to create a better future, made the thought of losing each and every thing of his own life a bit more bearable. Becoming a part of history, in a sense, was beautiful. It hurt him... but these places, libraries, archives, or just the memory of those who would outlive him, had always been able to soothe his pain. The world went on. Eventually, it would forget. But for a while, it would remember and he had done his best to extend this period for as long as he possibly could.

As Dr. phil. Remus Hadley walks down the _James Wilson_ wing of the Princeton Central Library, he breathes the air in as deeply as he can, and tries to forget about the heavy feeling that has patiently stayed with him for the last two months. Indeed, he had taken a while to find this place, and even longer to pluck up the courage to visit it.

He is looking for a man he has never met before, but it takes him only seconds to spot him. In the very back of the reading room, hardly visible behind two enourmous stacks of books, sits a man whose hair is a little more sparse than on the pictures Remus has found online, whose skin is a shade paler, and whose eyes are sunken in a tat deeper. He looks older, as worn out as you would expect a man who has officially been dead for 24 months to look like, but there's no doubt that he's the one Remus is looking for. He approaches the table quickly, not because he's eager to get there, but because he's scared that he'll leave if he thinks about it much longer.

"Gregory House?"

The man looks up from his current book and slightly narrows his eyes. "You look familiar."

"We have never met before."

House doesn't answer to this, but wordlessly turns back to the book. It's thick and looks as if it is both, very old and very expensive. Remus sits down on the oposite side of the table and carefully pushes the bookstacks aside, as to be able to look at the other man. He apprechiates them, but they don't matter right now. He's about to arrange destruction. Not all the books in the world will be able to repair this damage.

"I'm here because I need your help."

"I don't do that any longer." He still looks at the page in front of him, but Remus is fairly sure that he's not reading anything right now. "You can rat me out to the police though, they might even pay you a reward."

"It's not so much me, actually."

"Then you can take a money and have a good time. You wouldn't even hurt yourself."

"It's my daughter."

"If you _really_ care about her you should find her a doctor who gives a shit, not somebody who _quit_."

"She doesn't need a cure." Remus pauses for a second and takes a deep breath. "I mean, she does, but I am not naive."

"Any one will do then. Letting them die is the easiest part of the job."

"I think you promised to kill her."

Very slowly. House's head goes up and he takes a more serious look at his visitor. "So that's where I know you from."

"Yes."

"I guess good news don't travel as fast as people give them credit for. I've been dead for... now, how long has it been? A year? Two? Three? Give and take a couple weeks."

He knows that House knows exactly how long it has been. "Two full years, almost to the day."

"I never made a promise. I merely offered a wy out."

"If you offer to do something like that, you promise. You don't break a word like that."

"Did Thirteen figure out it was a fraud?" It seems like something she would do. Obsess over something irrelevant that everybody else has already forgotten about, obviously.

"No, I did", Remus shook his head in denial, but a faint smile spread over his lips. "She mentioned that you call her that. I didn't think it spoke in your favor, but it sounds different than I expected."

"I speak of my coworkers with a lot of love and respect, but they never remember to speak of that."

"So... am I right?"

"About what?"

"Your promise."

"I also promised a lot of things to a lot of people, some of them being more, some less crazy... the people, I mean. Well, and the promises."

"I know you're supposed to be dead. You've already had your funeral, and I know she was incredibly mad at you afterwards. She used to visit me on occasions when she was still better, and with some things, she's just like her mother."

He frowns a bit, probably thinking of the disease that his wife and children have in common, too.

"None of them were good pretenders. They were to the rest of the world, but I always saw right through them, no matter how hard they tried. They could've fooled God into believeing everything was fine, but never me. I always knew."

He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly.

"I passed that on to her. Not that it did her any good, though. If you distance yourself by nature, but see what people are really like... You're bound to fall into despair. You're never gonna be truly close to anybody, and then the loneliness will get you." He looks up at House, both eyebrows slightly raised, causing his eyes to look strangely wide and sad. "But who am I telling that to, right?"

"If she thinks I'm dead, how come you looked for me?"

"I've been married to Emma for almost twenty years before she died and I've never loved someone so much ever again. Not that I didn't try. I did, it just... it was meant to be just _once_, I think, and then never again. It's a gift and a curse. If you find your perfect match, the world can't hurt you one bit, but it you lose that one, you're as lonely as can be. I mean, I found somebody, but after Emma was dead... we were free, just for a couple of years, free of everything, just with each other and the children, and things seemed to become... so, _so_much better."

"But they didn't?"

"Oh,l no, they really got. But then, they became empty. I only took of care of Emma, in the end. And loved her. Took care of her and loved her, day by day, and then there way Rose, whom I loved too, and who was there for _me_. But I missed Emma too much. Not taking care of her after her death... I don't know, I forgot how to simply care about somebody after that. I couldn't make love last long enough. Couldn't hold on during the bad times any longer. Remy struggled with that, too. Always found somebody, but let go eventully. And Leonard, he just... he was _loved_, I mean, he had a family and everything, but it didn't help him one bit in the end. It didn't even make a difference."

"What about the one she was with when she left?"

"When you let her go."

"You want me to kill your daughter and reproach me for firing her?"

Remus only shakes his head. "By no means."

"So?"

"They split. Remy didn't explain, but she didn't want her to watch her die. It was a couple of months before things got really bad. She didn't even tell me until then. I mean, I have known it for some time now. I know the signs. Leonard kept it a secret too, until there was no way of keeping it a secret. But I saw that his hands were shaking and his muscles twitching sometimes, and then more often, and I saw it in her, too. But she never lost a word about it, so neither did I."

"Then how did you find me? Nobody else did. But nobody else was looking for me, so it'isn't that spectacular."

"Should I have talked about it more? I know I left her alone. I could've told her it's okay, I can handle that. What if she kept it to herself because she thought it'd break me? What if she suffered because I wasn't good enough?"

"Well, that would really suck."

"I don't even know if I could've handled it."

"A sorrow shared is a sorrow _doubled_."

"You... you must be very lonely."

"You don't say." House's voice is a little imaptient by now. Thirteen's dad intrigues him, he must admit that to himself, and he can't deny that he enjoys talking to somebody again. Ever since Wilson died, nobody has talked to him like that. Nobody has known him, nobody cared. Nobody had been there whom he, House, had even remotely cared about either. A bit of his past is coming back. The only bit, to be honest, that he hasn't left behind without regrets.

"Why are you here?", he pressed again, "_How_?"

"I took a shot." Remus shruggs. "You seem to be a man who keeps his promises. Maybe a lying bastard too -not my words, just what has come to my ears- but still of the honest kind. You might hurt people and act reckless and regret too little of the things you did, but... I know what she did for Leonard, because I couldn't do it back then. And now she's dying, and whenever she knows what she is saying, it's your name." A few tears have filled his eyes and make them look red, almost bloodshot. He is tired, that is obvious, in a way that doesn't show just because you haven't slept well.

"So you figured I promised to kill her", House states, "and because she told you I'm a lying bastard, you figured I'm still alive and hope I'm still going to keep my promise."

For a long time, he doesn't answer at all. It strucks House that, by coming here, he _is_, in a way, killing his daugher. He just can't be the headsman. "Your friend died and was burried here, and a large sum of money was donated to this library in his name. I knew if you were still alive, I'd find you here. Large collection of antique medical books. Nothing compared to working in a clinic, I suppose, but for you, it's probably the closest you're ever going to get to this again."

"Yeah, thanks."

"Oh, no. I didn't mean to imply that your life is meaningless. You gave up a lot for your friend."

"That stopped being noble once he died." The thought of Wilson still leaves him with a weird feeling every single time. Death is nothingness. Nothingness, at least to House, is desireable, and he knows well that missing the dead, missing Wilson, is a dumb thing to be doing. He's gone... so what? It's not like his last weeks were particularily great, anways.

But still... he doesn't believe it anymore. Wilson's death _does_ mean something. It means the hell of a lot to _him_.

"I couldn't be there for them when Emma died. I should've been, but I just couldn't."

"You lost your wife."

"They lost their _mother_,and they were _children_. And sometimes I think that, maybe, I didn't love them enough. I tried to, but when Emma passed, I... I just didn't know what to do, and neither did they, so I should've done... somthing, whatever, to help them, but I couldn't. No matter how much I wanted to, I just couldn't."

"So you're beating yourself up over not having done something you still don't know years ago, which could have hurt somebody so long ago that they've probably been over it for the longer part of their lifes, anyways."

"No, what I'm doing is... is... I'm beating myself up over not even being there for them when _their_ time has come, I guess. I failed them too often, and I can't do anything about it. They'll think of me, if there's... something else, and all they'll be able to remmber is what I did to them. You know, I hit him once. Leonard. Emma and I, we vowed that we'd never do this to our children, and she never did, but I betrayed her. He was just a few years older than Remy, but wise beyond his age. He did something at school, beat up another kid and gave him a nosebleed, two weeks after Emma died. That was the only time he did something serious. They both skipped school sometimes, and drank too early, and hung out in the city well into the morning hours, but they always were good kids, still, and I was always proud of them. And then I got a letter from Emma's life insurance because they refused payment at first, until we sued them for it, and Leonard came in with that note and I... I..."

"Beat him", House ended the sentence, his voice still as calm as before. What the man was really thinking of him now, Remus couldn't tell and was afraid of nevertheless.

"I got scared. Really, really scared. The walls were closing in on me. I couldn't breathe, I coudln't see... and I just had to get outside. I tried to get to the door, but I ran into him, and then I just shoved him aside and he bumped against the table. But I didn't stop. I just kept walking, and sat down on the porch to breathe again. He brought me a glass of water. I apologized and he said it's okay, but I know I hurt him. I know it."

"You could have done worse. As a parent."

"I should have done better."

"You're here now."

"Will you do it?"

He closes the book and puts it on the stack closest to him, even though it's also the one looking less stable.

"I promised."

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Sources:

Losing My Religion: azlyrics lyrics /rem/losingmyreligion .html

Stewart Alsop: . .edu/johnson/archives .hom/oralhistory .hom/Alsop-S/Alsop-S .asp


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